Sally Wentworth - Yesterday's Affair Page 13

  Olivia gave him a quick glance, then said, 'Hi. I'm cooking you the works—what they call in the hotel "a full English breakfast", so I hope you're hungry.' He didn't answer so she told him cheerfully, 'It's about ready. Shall we sit down?'

  She gestured towards the table, and Nick's eyebrows rose; Olivia had found a yellow gingham cloth, and there was a vase of daffodils that she'd picked from the garden in the centre of the table.

  'Trying to cheer up the invalid?' he said with jeering masochism.

  Olivia's eyebrows rose. 'I'm trying to feed myself up ready for the day ahead; I have a busy schedule lined up.'

  She set the plates on the table and sat down. 'I imagine you're busy too, aren't you?' He was watching her frowningly, and she looked up. 'You don't mind if I start, do you? I want to get back to Stratford.'

  Slowly he came to sit opposite her, his eyes still searching and wary. Olivia's face was clean; she'd had no make-up except lipstick with her, and there was no way she could disguise the tiredness round her eyes. 'You look as if you haven't slept,' Nick said pointedly.

  'You're right, I didn't,' Olivia agreed calmly, taking him by surprise. 'And it's your fault.' She saw him stiffen, and went on, 'You'll have to make getting new curtains for that guest-room one of your first priorities; the sunlight came straight into my room at some unearthly hour this morning.'

  Nick looked taken aback for only a moment, but then his face hardened. 'Are we going to pretend that nothing happened last night?'

  'Nothing did.'

  'I would hardly call it nothing,' he said with harsh sarcasm.

  'Oh, you mean me seeing your scars. So I saw them— so what?'

  'You hardly seemed to have such a casual reaction last night.'

  Olivia took another bite of her breakfast and reached for the salt-cellar. 'Say, do you have any more salt? This is empty.'

  'I've no idea.'

  'Remember to put some on your shopping list. What were you saying? Oh, yes, my reactions last night.' She shrugged. 'Sine, I was shocked. Who wouldn't be? It must have been a terrible crash—I take it you got those injuries in the plane crash?' Nick nodded, not eating, his eyes intent on her every move. Olivia's heart fluttered, but she went on, 'So you were in an accident, so you were hurt; I really don't see why you're making such a big thing of it. Unfortunately accidents happen all the time. Some people get killed, some are lucky and live. You were lucky.'

  'Lucky?' He flicked the word at her like a whiplash. 'Yes, I suppose I was lucky. When the plane crashed I was knocked unconscious but my father was all right, able to walk away. But he came back to get me out. My legs were broken and he had a hell of a job. The plane began to burn and I caught fire, but he stayed with me and managed to drag me away. And when it finally exploded he covered me with his own body and was killed. So yes, I was lucky that I'm left crippled and scarred. Lucky that my father is dead and I'm not!'

  He was glaring at her, his eyes savage, his hands gripping the table. Olivia stared at him, trying to fight down all the love and pity, the overwhelming feminine need to offer comfort. Instead she banged her knife down on the table and said furiously, 'Yes, you damn well are lucky! You're alive, aren't you? And of course your father came back and got you out. Do you really believe he would have stood by and watched you burn while there was even the faintest chance of saving you? He was your father! He loved you. He did what any parent would instinctively do. What you would have done if it had been your child in danger. And he gave his life for yours so that you could enjoy your life, not sit around feeling sorry for yourself all the time.'

  Nick stood up angrily. 'I don't feel sorry for myself!'

  'Of course you do. Shutting yourself away in this house, keeping me at arm's length in case I saw your scars. Hell, what are a few scars and a limp? You're not blind, are you! You're not a paraplegic stuck in a wheelchair? If you ask me, Nick you're just a self-pitying coward.' She threw the words at him, deliberately intending to shock.

  He took a stride towards her, his eyes murderous, his hands bunched into furious fists. Olivia thought that he was going to hit her, and it took all her courage not to flinch away but to glare back at him. But then Nick's face worked convulsively, and he swung round and strode out of the room, slamming the door violently shut behind him.

  Olivia took a long, shuddering breath. She pushed her plate away, giving up all pretence at eating, and put a hand up to her face. For a minute there she had been sure that Nick was going to strike her. He had been so angry! But anger, she told herself, was good. It was a positive emotion. Much better than bottling his hurt up inside and trying to pretend he was OK.

  Briskly, she got to her feet and cleared up the breakfast things, then went to look for Nick. She couldn't find him anywhere, but then heard a noise outside and found him round the back of the house, chopping wood. He had his shirt off and there was sweat on his skin as he worked out his anger, swinging the axe down hard to split the logs from some great tree-trunk. Lifting the axe above his head, he caught sight of her, then swung it violently down before straightening up to face her defiantly, daring her to look at his chest, fully expecting her to show pity or revulsion.

  Steeling herself, knowing this was a testing moment, Olivia walked up to him, forcing herself to keep her eyes steadily on him. 'Are you about ready to go to the heliport? Shall we walk there together?'

  He didn't answer, and Olivia licked lips suddenly gone dry. 'Something bothering you?' Nick sneered.

  'Yes.' She put a hand on his arm, feeling the hardness of his muscles. 'I was remembering that time we were in Vermont and you went out to chop wood for the fire.' She smiled reminiscently. 'You chopped so much we had enough for the whole week. All those log fires.' She looked up into his eyes, her own soft and sensual as she remembered how they'd made love on the big rug in front of those fires almost every night.

  Nick stared at her. 'You can think of that—now?'

  'Of course I can. It was the happiest, most wonderful time of my life. I shall never forget it, never forget you,' she said simply.

  'Olivia—' he began on a note of protest.

  But she leaned forward and kissed his shoulder, ran her tongue over his salty skin. Nick shuddered convulsively, then became rigidly tense, his muscles like sprung steel. But he didn't push her away. Olivia kissed his shoulder again, raised languorous eyes to meet his, then smiled and stepped back. 'I guess this is no time to start feeling sexy. Meet you in front of the house in ten minutes.'

  She left him gazing after her, the axe slack in his hands, and she didn't look back as she went into the house to collect her things.

  Ten minutes later Nick was waiting for her in the hall, dressed, ready for work. He locked up the house and they began to walk up the main driveway. At the bend Olivia paused to look back. 'It's so beautiful,' she sighed. 'Tell me about its history.'

  His voice was reluctant at first, but it was a safe subject and after a while Nick loosened up to tell her the house's story, which was also his family's history, of course.

  'And is it in the library there that you have your family tree—the one that goes back to 1066?' Olivia enquired.

  'Yes, it's shut away in a drawer.'

  'I'd love to see it some time.'

  It was an impulsive, sincere remark, but it brought the whole question of the future back to their minds. Nick's stride lengthened and he made a non-committal reply. Olivia talked of other things, determined to try to keep the conversation, the atmosphere, as normal as possible, not to let a tense silence arise between them. When they reached the heliport Bill Fairford was already there. He strolled out of the hangar when he heard them, and didn't attempt to hide a knowing grin when he saw their sleepless faces.

  'What's so funny?' Nick snapped.

  'Just pleased that the fog has lifted, boss,' Bill got out smartly, the smile disappearing fast.

  They separated, Nick walking towards the office building, Olivia to her car. 'Bye, Nick, see you tomorrow,' she called out.<
br />
  He hesitated in his stride, but said nothing and continued on his way.

  When Olivia got back to the hotel and went to get her key from the desk the receptionist also handed her several letters. Taking them up to her room, she put a 'Do not Disturb' sign on the door and dropped the letters on the bed until she'd taken a shower, brushed her hair and put on a nightgown. Then she helped herself to an orange juice from the fridge and sat cross-legged on the bed to open them. The first was a fax from her editor, congratulating her on the work she'd already sent in and asking her to do follow-ups on a couple of the articles. 'Subjects popular Stateside,' she read. 'Stay over longer if you need to.' Which was nice, and definitely improved the day.

  A second letter was from a close friend, Christina, the one she mostly went to concerts and the theatre with, and who was getting a divorce, saying that she and her husband had decided to try living together again. Which was also good news, as Olivia had been convinced that they should never have separated in the first place. And a third envelope with a local postmark contained two tickets for the first night of a new production of Measure for Measure at the Swan Theatre that Thursday, with the manager's compliments.

  There were a couple of other letters, forwarded to her by a neighbour, but nothing of any importance. Slipping into bed, Olivia lay back on the pillow, thinking about New York, something she had very seldom done since she'd been in England. With some surprise she realised that she had missed the Big Apple hardly at all. There was so much to do here, so much history and visual beauty contained in this small corner of a tiny country. Although she had no close family back home she had plenty of friends, like Christina—most of them young divorcees and career women like herself, women without a permanent man, but they had all faded into the background when Nick was so close. Now, Olivia tried to think objectively about what she wanted out of life.

  It took less than a second to know that it was Nick, now and always. It would mean having to give up her career, her country, everything, but Nick desperately needed her even if his stubborn pride wouldn't admit it. When she'd come to England it had been with the idea of finding him and resolving their differences so that they could get married and go back to the States to live, where she could get on with her career. An entirely selfish dream of having the best of all worlds. But life wasn't that easy. Instinctively she knew that Nick would hang on to Harnbury Hall as long as he possibly could, which—if she could beat down his defences and make him admit that he still loved her—would mean living there. Well, that was OK; she supposed she could write anywhere, and she would love living in a house that old and beautiful, and making enough money to restore the place would be a challenge she sensed she would enjoy. But giving up her whole way of life wouldn't be an easy decision.

  The biggest and most immediate problem was going to be persuading Nick that they still had a future together. But at least she'd made a satisfactory start this morning. Olivia smiled to herself, and fell asleep trying to think of ways she could convince Nick that she still loved him, despite his scars.

  She slept solidly for four hours, then walked into the town for lunch in the Dirty Duck, a little pub near the River Avon. She ordered a Ploughman's: a thick hunk of fresh bread, cheese, sweet pickles, lettuce and tomato, which Nick had introduced her to and which had become a favourite lunchtime snack. I'm sitting here, watching the swans of Avon opposite the Swan Theatre at Stratford-upon-Avon, she thought, and was enraptured by it. A narrow-boat, brightly painted with traditional scenes on its sides, chugged slowly by, the man at the tiller giving her a cheery wave, the swans bobbing in its wake. Another small delight.

  After lunch Olivia drove to the village of Snowshill, set on one of the highest points of the Cotswolds. It was a place she'd missed before even though there was a National Trust property there. The village nestled beneath a hill, a squat-towered church in its centre with cottages set around a sloping village green. The National Trust owned the local manor. Olivia paid her money and went in, expecting to find the usual rooms of furniture, porcelain and pictures, shaded from the sun. Instead she found a distinctly odd treasure-house of a dozen different and eccentric collections. There were innumerable clocks, model ships, navigational instruments, Indonesian artefacts, children's toys, and, in one weirdly lit room, a startling display of seventeenth-century Japanese Samurai armour, arranged as a gathering of warriors with their weapons and banners, appearing out of the gloom.

  Although fascinated by all the objects, Olivia felt glad to leave the house for the sunlit garden. She wandered round for a while and then sat on one of the wooden seats near a carved stone tablet. Idly she read the inscription, and found it so apposite that she repeated the words over, learning them by heart.

  'Hours fly

  Flowers die.

  New days

  New ways

  Pass by.

  Love stays.'

  Love stays; she repeated the thought in her mind. And I'll stay. In that moment she made the most important decision of her life. No matter how long it took, she would stay in England until she browbeat Nick into admitting that he still wanted her. Perhaps not so much in the beginning, but later on, she would probably miss America and her old life terribly, but love stays, and her love for Nick was all that mattered.

  That evening she rang Nick at home.

  'Hi, it's Olivia,' she said brightly when he answered. 'I've decided that tomorrow I want to go to Arundel Castle and then to Brighton to see the Prince Regent's Pavilion. Can you arrange to land at those places?'

  'Yes, but… Olivia, I really think..

  'What do you really think, Nick?' Olivia asked on a warning note. 'Our contract doesn't run out for another two trips.'

  He was silent for a moment, and she could imagine the effort of will it was costing him not to get angry.

  'Very well,' he said shortly. 'I'll make the necessary arrangements.'

  'Good. Say, are you doing anything Thursday night?'

  His voice was immediately wary. 'Why?'

  'I need an escort. I've been given two tickets for the first night of Measure for Measure at The Swan. It's black tie, so—'

  'No,' Nick cut in.

  Olivia's voice hardened. 'It's not only black tie, Nick; you do get to wear other clothes as well. No one's going to notice that you have a couple of scars under your evening suit.'

  'Damn you to hell, Olivia!' he shouted at her, and slammed down the phone.

  He was still in a black mood the next morning when she turned up at the heliport. Olivia took a look at his angry eyes and immediately became brisk and businesslike, and when they got in the chopper she spent most of the journey to Arundel, not far from the south coast, reading up the report on the castle in her guide books. Originally an eleventh- and twelfth-century castle, she read, rebuilt in the eighteenth century, the seat of the Duke of Norfolk. A few weeks ago she would have been in awe of dates that old; now she took them for granted. Anyway, compared to Stonehenge they were quite new.

  The thought made her smile, and Nick, glancing her way, said over the intercom, on a belligerent note, 'What are you grinning like a Cheshire cat about?'

  She turned to look at him. 'I was just thinking how blas£ I'm getting about history and dates. Now something has to be as old as Stonehenge before it impresses me. Perhaps I'm becoming "Old Worldified".'

  'Well, make the most of it,' Nick said, his jaw set stubbornly. 'Because you'll be back in the States next week.'

  'Oh, didn't I tell you?' She gave him an innocent smile. 'I had a fax from my editor yesterday; he wants me to stay on to do some more articles. Hey! Watch it!' She grabbed the side of her seat as the chopper suddenly dipped.

  Nick swiftly righted it, and she burst into laughter. 'What's so damn funny?' he snapped.

  'Your face! Oh, Nick, you just don't know whether to be pleased or sorry.'

  'It doesn't matter to me either way. After Friday our contract comes to an aid and I won't be seeing you again. Ever,' he added cr
ushingly. 'So whether you're here or in New York doesn't make any difference.'

  That's what you think, Olivia thought smugly. Have you got a few surprises coming.

  'Did you say something?' Nick was watching her suspiciously, obviously expecting her to argue with him.

  'No, not a thing,' she replied sweetly, and smiled into his disbelieving eyes.

  'And don't expect me to come to the theatre with you tomorrow.'

  'Why not?' But before he could speak, 'Why don't we talk about it some other time? Could you fly over to the left a little? I want to take a shot of that beautiful house down there. Do you know what it's called?'

  Nick consulted his map. 'It's Petworth House.'

  'Petworth.' Olivia made a note in the book she kept to correspond with the camera films, then looked up the place in her guide book. 'A seventeenth-century house with a Grinling Gibbons room.' She wrinkled her nose in mock disdain. 'Only seventeenth-century!'

  Nick's lips twitched but he quickly turned away and managed to stifle a grin. If I can make him laugh, Olivia thought, if I can convince him that life can still be fun, then I'll be halfway there.

  Arundel was a few miles from the coast, and they were able to land in the grounds. Olivia received her usual warm welcome and guided tour, but Nick didn't come with her. Nor did he after they flew the few miles further towards the coast to Brighton. They had to land outside the town, but there was a cab waiting to take her into the centre to see the Royal Pavilion, the small manor house that the Prince Regent had enlarged and transformed into his seaside palace. Olivia was suitably impressed, gazing with awed eyes at the lavish, Chinese-style decor. She could imagine the Prince Regent escaping here from his mad father and the wife he couldn't bear, indulging his eccentric taste, and entertaining his mistresses and his gambling cronies.

  Her guide offered to take her for a walk round the Brighton Lanes, small narrow streets famous for their antique and specialist shops. Ordinarily Olivia would have been happy to accept, but she had other things on her mind today, so she thanked him but refused, and took a cab back to the chopper.